Peter Starič

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Peter Staric in TekTalk, Spring 1969

Peter Starič (b. September 2, 1924 in Yugoslavia – d. May 30, 2021 in Domžale, Slovenia) worked for Tektronix from October 1967 until August 4, 1970 when he returned to Ljubljana.

In My Life in Totalitarianism 1941-1991, Peter Starič wrote:

After landing at Portland airport, I was greeted by three top Tektronix officials: the R&D director Bill Walker and the foreign sales director Frank Doyle, both of whom I already knew. There was also the boss of the Parts Evaluation Engineering where I would work, Jack Milay. I did not consider myself being such an important person to be greeted by Tektronix big brass right at the airport. [...] In order to upgrade my knowledge, I subscribed to several training courses in the company. The most important of them was the class on wideband amplifiers, which were extensively used in TV, measuring equipment and in communications. Our main lecturer was a company expert Carl Battjes, assisted occasionally by John Addis and Bob Ross, who was an expert in mathematical analysis of circuits.

Starič was the evaluation engineer for the 7A12 amplifier plug-in.

Documents Authored by Peter Starič



Patents by Peter Starič

Page Title Inventors Assignee Filed Granted Links
Patent YU 35398B Ph-meter with appertaining accessories Peter Starič Iskra 1973-04-27 1980-12-31
Patent SI 9400406A Vezje za kompenziranje od motilnega izmeničnega električnega polja izvirajoče napetosti med priključnima sponkama na merjencu (Circuit for compensation of open circuit voltage which originates from disturbing alternating electrical field) Peter Starič Elektroinstitut Milan Vidmar 1994-11-08 1996-06-30

Links

Quotes

My task was to evaluate the plug-in, designed by that engineer R. H., of whom I have already written. At first, when we met in the new working relation, everything was looking fine, and I had ignored his scoffing at a staff meeting from over a year ago. He explained how the instrument worked, and I began evaluating it. However, as soon as I had found some faults in the operation or – God beware – a design mistake, he had taken this personally and not matter-of-factly as I did. I had to hear heavy words, like “You Yugoslavs do not know anything,” and the like. To avoid any further insults, I stopped giving any suggestions and only wrote the laconic reports of the instrument behavior, buttressed by the data of my numerous measurements.

The problem was that the plug-in amplifier R. H. had designed should be the most used in the new series. Four of five would-be customers had already ordered it, and three of them would cancel the whole order if this plug-in is not available.

To accelerate the matter, the management assigned the design engineer Larry Biggs to assist R. H. and Jim Cavoretto to help me. Jim was a very kind fellow, and we cooperated well. The new situation had become easier for me; I let Jim to communicate with R. H. and to give him any suggestions for the necessary changes. On the other hand, Larry had found some design faults and had correspondingly simplified the plug-in.

The evaluation went on fine, except for a basic design fault, which could not be corrected without extensive mechanical and circuit layout changes, for which there was not enough time. Though Jim and I had all possibilities to prove this necessity by measuring the necessary electrical parameters and to do the thorough mathematical analysis, based on the measured data, neither of us had enough knowledge to do this. (Now forty years after, I know how to do this because I have done the necessary mathematical analysis of a similar circuit in the meantime.)

As even in the third A-phase (normally there is only one) that basic fault was not corrected, management decided to serve the soup before it was fully cooked, neglecting the B-phase entirely. So I had got the production release document — already signed by R. H. and his boss, as well as by my boss Leon Orchard — to sign. Since the plug-in was not yet ripe for the market, I refused to sign. Besides, if I would sign, I would become the convenient main scapegoat, when the customers would discover the fault.

Only when the document was modified to include all my suggestions of the mandatory corrections, I had signed. On the very next day Jim Heinze, who just became my new boss, told me that I was moved from instrument evaluation to the production—to work on the graveyard shift. I felt this as an unjust humiliation. To look for another employer would be futile in that time of general recession. Though my new boss James Baker accepted me and was very friendly, I decided to return back home to Yugoslavia because the anticipated arrival of my whole family in the USA had become impossible.

Photos

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